JUST as a mighty mango tree is hidden within the stone of the
mango, even so, O man, divinity itself is hidden within you. Rest
not until you uncover it."

These words, spoken more than twenty-five hundred years ago by
the twenty-fourth Prophet of Jainism, Bhagwan Mahavir, resounded
in the heart of Gurudev Shree Chitrabhanu when he first heard
them as a young adult. This seed-thought continued to grow,
blossom, and bear fruit throughout his life's experiences. Before
he became a monk at the age of twenty he was inspired by two
shining examples of the divine in man: his loving and highly
principled father, and Mahatma Gandhi, with whom he worked for
the freedom of India.

Events in his life accelerated the process of his inner
ripening. At four years of age, he lost his mother, and at eleven
his younger sister. As a college student, he won a severe bout
with rheumatic fever, during which time he glimpsed his soul's
longing to live in light and service to all. In his second year
of working in Gandhiji's non- cooperation movement, he lost his
closest and dearest friend. Then he lost his peace. He confronted
and unmasked questions which lay smoldering in his consciousness
"Is there some meaning to life? Do we have some mission, or
are we to pass the years only in filling and emptying the body,
in collecting and rearranging things? Where did my loved ones go?
What is the point of living if those dearest to us depart from us
sooner or later?"

Rather than give in to the pain, depression, and confusion of
those moments, he took a positive step. In search of permanent
understanding, he discovered a genuine master who initiated him
into the Jain monkhood and advised him "Books and other
people's answers alone cannot illumine you. You have to dive into
yourself. Why do you not have the experience of your own
life"

Through patience, introspection, and the practice of silence
for the greater part of five years, he began to remove the clouds
of his unawareness. Living the itinerant life of a monk in the
inspiring company of his master as well as his revered father,
who became a monk along with him, he came closer and closer to
his own reality. One night he unlocked the door which had sealed
him from the knowledge of Self. He experienced fully the radiant
sunlight of his being.

From that moment, his life became an actualization of his
inner reality. It was his inborn gift to be able to melt the
hearts of listeners and readers by his vibrant, poignant, and
direct words arising from his own experience. In twenty-nine
years as a monk, he walked barefoot over thirty thousand miles
bringing people out from their pettiness, sectarianism, and
closed-mindedness into the realm of the highest and noblest in
them. As people's hearts were touched, they began to transform
their lives. They attuned themselves to Mahavir's universal
message and took the ideal of reverence for all life into the
practical details of their day-to-day living.

In Bombay, Gurudev turned his energies to the stream of social
action. He founded the Divine Knowledge Society, to which his
students offered complete dedication. When a natural disaster,
famine, or flood struck, teams of volunteers would go to those
areas and distribute food, clothing, blankets, and medicines. The
words of Mahavir came to life in the numerous instances of their
giving of themselves: "Since you receive more than any other
form of life, it is natural that you will want to give
more."

Gurudev soon became one of the well-known spiritual leaders of
the Jains in India. Founders of the Temple of Understanding
invited him to address their First, Second, and Third Spiritual
Summit Conferences in Calcutta and Geneva and at the Harvard
Divinity School in 1968, 1970, and 1971, respectively. Gurudev's
decision to attend in person the last two conferences represented
a daring step. It was the first time in five thousand years of
known Jain history that a Jain monk had traveled out-side of
India. The winds of change were stirring within him. He rejected
precedent, tradition, and public opinion, and risked his position
of great authority and respect in order to bring the universal
teaching of reverence for life to the larger human family.

Inspired by the genuineness of his message, Gurudev's
audiences in Europe, Africa, and America urged him to stay and
teach them. Moved by their sincerity and eagerness to learn,
Gurudev gave up the orthodox life of a monk, his title and post,
and accepted the many invitations to teach in America. Among the
institutions of human development sponsoring his talks were the
United Nations, Koinonia Foundation, Pendle Hill, Wainwright
House, Princeton, Sarah Lawrence, Cornell, the State University
of New York at Purchase, and many others. He became for a time
president of the World Fellowship of Religions, and worked
closely with individuals involved in the Temple of Understanding
and in the fields of yoga, psychiatry, philosophy, and
government.

Founder of the Jain Meditation International Center in New
York City, of which Gurudev is the spiritual leader he has
inspired his students in Brazil, India, Canada Kenya, England,
and diverse parts of America to open centers where the philosophy
of reverence for life can be taught and practiced. Throughout the
many changing phases of his life, as a monk or a family member ,
as a teacher or a student he has been communicating from his
heart the underlying oneness he feels with all forms of life
inviting mankind to see, experience, and rejoice.